


a chorus of song, hearts of hurt

by ianmalcolmreynolds



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: F/F, Flashbacks, I may or may not be simping for Erana James, angsty, stories told through song, will include other characters in later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29129001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ianmalcolmreynolds/pseuds/ianmalcolmreynolds
Summary: A probe into the pain locked away in the Unsinkable Eight's hearts and how the music around them takes them back to the days they can't forget, but desperately wish they could.
Relationships: Regan/Toni Shalifoe
Kudos: 12





	a chorus of song, hearts of hurt

TONI SHALIFOE -

"Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye" - The Casinos

**Kiss me each morning**

**For a million years**

Toni could never wake up to her first alarm.

It didn’t matter how many she set or how early they were, she would never wake up until Regan’s mother knocked on the door, her words indiscernible behind the oak but her message never lost.

Toni always spent at least five minutes sitting on her bed, arms on her knees and staring blankly at her wall. She would blink the exhaustion out of her eyes and let her mind wander to whatever she had just been dreaming about before she threw on some deodorant, slipped on her basketball shoes and grabbed her backpack. 

She always tried politely declining whatever food Regan’s mother forced at her, but that was always a losing battle. She usually wound up walking out the door with a bagel after downing a glass of water.

Regan was always in the car when Toni got there, tapping the steering wheel to the beat of whichever oldie was humming out the radio.

“Hey,” Toni said quickly, throwing on a seatbelt before turning straight into Regan’s lips for a morning kiss.

Toni was startled for a moment before her entire body began to fill with butterflies.

Maybe Toni could become a morning person after all.

**Hold me each evening**

**By your side**

“So….that one is the Big Dipper,” Toni said, trying to muster a confidence in her voice that was blatantly transparent.

She didn’t dare look at the girl lying next to her but she could hear the stifled laughter, the arm pressed against her quivering in admirable restraint.

“Um…you’re close,” Regan mustered after a minute, her falsetto betraying the faux support. Toni pushed her with her elbow in response and Regan’s laughter cut through the night sky, finally free.

Regan rolled with the weight of Toni’s shove, but rolled back harder and snuggled into Toni’s side, snaking an arm around her ribs.

“Keep guessing,” Regan hummed.

Toni smiled and raised her head, burying her nose in Regan’s hair and pressing a quick kiss to her scalp before returning her gaze to the sky.

**Tell me you'll love me**

**For a million years**

The words echoed in Toni’s head for a moment.

They were lying on top of Regan’s car again, stargazing for what felt like the millionth night in a row, and Regan just said it.

The words.

Toni continued to stare at the sky for a moment, processing what the situation meant. What Regan meant. What the words, those words, meant.

No one had ever told Toni they loved her before.

It’s not like she’d expected to hear it from anyone. She didn’t even know what her dad looked like and her mom knew no allegiance but to powder and pill bottles.

Martha loved her, she knew, and Toni loved Martha. But that was different, more of a familial kind of love, and it had never been vocalized.

Toni felt fear seize her body for half a second. Then, just as quickly, she felt none at all.

For once in her life, she felt happy. Safe. Home.

She turned to face Regan, her nose mere inches from the other girls cheek, and whispered them back.

“I love you, too”

**Then if it don’t work out**

Toni’s anger subsided long ago, replaced by the bitter cold Minnesota winter that ripped through her jacket.

She and Regan had stood, leaned against the trunk of Regan’s car, for close to an hour. Toni’s shoulder was starting to ache from where one of those assholes grabbed her, but she could barely feel it over the guilt.

She couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact with Regan.

She kept sneaking glances at her to see if her girlfriend was looking her direction, looking away, looking down, anything at all other than the blank stare.

Regan hadn’t moved once.

After the silence finally broke Toni, she took a few brisk steps forward and turned, glancing everywhere except Regan’s eyes.

“What are you thinking right now,” she said weakly, barely holding back the tidal wave in her heart.

**Then if it don’t work out**

“I just don’t know why you couldn’t just let them walk away,” Regan said, meeting Toni’s eyes for the first time.

Regan's eyes were different. They weren’t warm. They weren’t open. They weren’t full of love.

Like the weather outside, they were gloomy and cold.

Toni turned and growled “I’m gonna fucking kill him”

“Toni, they’re gone,” Regan protested, her voice rising to a plea. “Can’t we just let it be over?”

Toni turned slowly, blinking away the tears and the shame and the rage that threatened to crest once more. She looked at Regan, who was prodding the mark on the corner of her mouth where she’d been hit.

Toni didn’t even recognize her. Regan’s shoulders sagged, her chin hanging and her eyes sunken. She looked tired.

Tired of Toni.

Without a word, Toni moved to stand next to the passenger door, hands deep in her pockets as she waited for Regan to finally take them home.

**Then you can tell me**

**Goodbye**

“Is this like a break or…” Toni trailed off, unwilling to even finish the sentence. Reluctant to speak the truth into existence. She already knew the answer anyway.

Regan swallowed hard and said “I don’t know,” which felt like an answer within itself.

In an instant, the house of cards came tumbling down. The safety, the home, the escape that she had so carefully and cautiously built in another person, in Regan, had finally collapsed in on itself. And Toni was left standing in the rubble holding the detonator.

“I don’t fucking get it,” Toni said. She could feel the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. She had never cried in front of anyone before, not Regan, not even Martha. She sure as fuck wasn’t about to start now.

Regan took a breath to compose herself and continued.

“My mom says you’re like birch bark,” she began. “One little match and you catch fire, just like that. It’s what I love most about you.”

Regan’s eyes dropped to Toni’s feet then out the windshield straight ahead.

“But it’s also the thing I don’t really know how to handle,” she finished.

Regan kept staring out the window. Toni stared at her, waiting, begging, pleading for one last glimpse, some scene of regret or sorrow from her former lover but Regan wouldn’t grant it.

Toni bit down on her lower lip and sucked in a shaky breath, trying desperately to keep those tears down for just a few more minutes, just a few more seconds. Wait until she got out of the car. Not in front of her.

She grabbed her backpack and got out of the car, making it about five feet before she let herself break. She knelt to the ground before looking up at the sky, her grief now streaming down her face freely.

As she sat there, wallowing in her despair, everything suddenly changed. Her anguish turned to anger, remorse switched to resentment, her pain into fury. Suddenly, it was as if she was having an out-of-body experience, watching in third person as she stood, walked towards Regan’s back windshield, and brought down her backpack on the glass.

Again. And again. And again.

Because what she really hated, Toni couldn’t break.


End file.
